Apocryphal Stories
Those Stories That Just Won't Die. Did They Really Happen?
Steve Dennie
Certain stories make the rounds, often propagated by someone who swears the story is true but can't prove it. But nobody asks for proof. It's such a good story, why ruin the fun?
According to a 1950's rumor, a black widow spider nested in a woman's beehive hairdo. It bit her, and she died. The 1960's edition featured a hippie who never washed his hair. One version said a mouse burrowed into his brain.
Did you heard about the woman who, after bathing her poodle, dried it in a microwave? Or maybe you remember the couple eating take-out chicken during a drive-in movie. "This tastes funny," the woman said. It was fried rat.
One of the most popular apocryphal stories is "The Phantom Hitchhiker." It has many versions, all of which go something like this:
It's raining. Two guys offer a ride to a woman standing on a street corner without a raincoat or umbrella. Since she's wet and cold, one guy gives her his jacket. She tells them where she lives. When they're almost there, one guy turns around. She's gone! An old woman at the house says, "That was my daughter. She was killed on that corner where you picked her up two years ago on a rainy night." They ask where she's buried, and find the guy's jacket on her tombstone.
This story goes back to the 1800's, and has been told in Italy, Ireland, Turkey, and China--with horse and buggy or even a rickshaw in place of the car. In a religious version, the hitchhiker announces, "Jesus is coming soon." Then he (or she) vanishes from the back seat.
An airplane passenger, after being asked why he's not eating anything, says he's fasting and praying. But he's not a Christian. He says he's a Satanist, and he's going to a certain city to organize prayer against certain churches, Christian leaders, or religious groups. This story has many variations.
Maybe you heard the "Little Alf" story. In a letter to his family, an American in a Japanese POW camp said he was being treated well. He added, "Save the stamp for little Alf." They didn't know anybody named Alf. Suspicious, they looked on the back of the stamp and found these words: "They cut out my tongue." This story surfaced in various forms not only during World War II, but also during World War I and even the Civil War.
Some stories probably started as jokes, but someone told it as a true story and the legend began. It's so funny that we want it to be true.
A woman found a thief taking her neighbor's color TV. He said he was the TV repairman. She brought him her own TV and said, "Will you fix mine, too?"
One of the most popular stories is about a fellow who ran off with his secretary. He sent his wife a note asking her to sell his Jaguar and send him the money. So she sold the car for $50.
You probably heard about the man who ran into a parked car. He left this note on a windshield: "The people who saw this happen think I'm writing my name and address and insurance company. I'm not." It's a great story. But did it really happen?
Three sheltered Pennsylvania women visited New York City for the first time. They boarded an elevator with one other person--a big black man with a Doberman. They were terrified. When the man said, "Sit," the three women dropped to the floor. Some versions identify the man as Reggie Jackson. It never happened, though something similar occurred in a Bob Newhart TV episode.
Product Problems
"DuPont's Teflon frying pans give off poisonous fumes when heated! Why, I heard that a machinist who smoked a cigarette contaminated with Teflon died within five minutes!"
This rumor spread quickly, and here's how.
In 1961, a Texas air force installation printed the rumor in a bulletin. Before a retraction could be printed, a Michigan publication told it. The story was read at a Detroit fire chiefs' convention, and then appeared in a report from the British Columbia Fire Chief's Association. A doctor read it there, and relayed the news to a Canadian medical journal.
Although every publication printed a retraction, DuPont considered removing Teflon from the market. But so many people were using the pans without harm that the rumor soon died.
"A leper works in the Chesterfield cigarette factory!" Ligget & Myers, the parent company, suspected rival companies of starting the rumor. Actually, rumors of lepers working in cigarette and food factories had been around for over 100 years.
Two rumors have plagued Life Savers gum. First, it contained spider eggs. Then it caused cancer. The company spent up to $100,000 combating the rumors. The spider eggs rumor also afflicted Bubble Yum gum.
Depending on what rumor you hear, McDonalds pads its hamburgers with spider eggs, worms, or kangaroo meat. Rumor- mongers with bad memories caused the rumor to jump to other hamburger chains.
Since the 1960's, Revlon has received long fingernails in the mail because of rumors that they pay $10 for fingernails exceeding one inch.
In 1974, Johnny Carson joked about an impending toilet paper shortage. The next day, people swarmed to stores and began stockpiling toilet paper, causing a real shortage.
New York's birth rate increases nine months after power outages . . . so they say. Actually, studies of a 1965 blackout showed a slight decrease.
Those clever Japanese capitalists renamed a town Usa, so that their products could truthfully bear the label "Made in USA." There isa Japanese town named Usa. But it's very small, it's not an industrial town, and it existed long before America did.
Rumors of War
World War II spawned many rumors.
- The Navy dumped three boxcars of coffee into New York harbor.
- The Army was discarding whole sides of beef.
- Most American-produced butter was being used to grease Russian guns.
- The Red Cross was charging GIs outrageous prices for sweaters knit by volunteers.
- In Hawaii, Japanese workers cut arrows in cane fields to guide bombers to Pearl Harbor. A Honolulu high school ring was found on the body of a downed Japanese pilot.
Because of the many rumors, several rumor clinics were set up around country to set the stories straight.
Or is that just a rumor?
Pre-McCarthyists started the rumor that the letters JS under FDR's picture on 1946 dimes stood for Joseph Stalin. Actually, they're the initials of John Sinnock, the artist.
Here's a very modern rumor: the U.S. government invented a deadly disease and tried to infest Cuba with it. But the disease got to Haiti instead and returned to America as--AIDS.
Did You Hear About....
Many rumors have swarmed around U.S. presidents.
- Did you know that George Washington had liaisons with two slave girls?
- That John Quincy Adams, while serving as U.S. minister in Russia, sold an American girl into white slavery?
- That presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and Abraham Lincoln were all illegitimate children?
Just rumors.
Celebrities are popular targets of rumors.
Did you know that Robert Young went blind after his "Marcus Welby" TV series ended? That's why he always had his hand on somebody in his Sanka ads.
Mae West wore long dresses to hide her wooden leg.
Jerry Mathers--the Beaver--was killed in Vietnam. The UPI and AP wire services ran the story in 1968, then tried to blame each other for starting it.
Many people didn't really die when they were supposed to have died--John Kennedy, Hitler, James Dean, Elvis Presley. John Dillinger wasn't shot in 1934 outside a Chicago theater. That was someone else.
In 1949, Amelia Earhart's mother told an interviewer she thought Amelia was on a secret mission when her plane disappeared in 1937. This spawned rumors that she was captured by the Japanese--and might still be alive.
A 1910 rumor said Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science Church, was buried with a telephone so she could call back from the other side. The kernel of truth: since her tomb was so complex, workers installed a phone at the construction site so they could call for help.
In 1967, six Pennsylvania college students, high on LSD, supposedly blinded themselves by staring into the sun. The governor confirmed the story, and the news wires ran it. However, an investigation proved that a state official invented the story to scare kids away from LSD. That official committed himself to a psychiatric center.
Rumors about Mark Twain's passing prompted his famous remark, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
According to a persistent rumor which began in the 11th Century, Pope John VIII (854-856) was a woman. Those who promote the rumor call him/her Pope Joan.
Joan was supposedly a British nun who began wearing monk's robes to continue romancing a monk, and impersonated men for the rest of her life. She later became a religious teacher in Rome, and then secretary to Pope Pius IV. When he died, she became the Pope.
All this time, Pope Joan kept her sexual identity secret. But then she became pregnant by a bodyguard and gave birth at a very inopportune time: while giving a public litany. She and the child were beaten to death by the crowd.
According to some versions, the Devil intervened by whisking away the infant. Pope Joan's child is still alive, waiting to reenter the world as--you guessed it--the anti-Christ.
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